By HiLite Staff

On television last year, Todd Davis, the CEO of LifeLock, a company whose intent was to protect clients from identity theft, posted his social security number, 457-55-5462, for a commercial. According to the commercial, that really is his number, and Davis challenged viewers to steal his identity to prove how effective LifeLock really was. What happened? According to an article in the Dallas Morning News, Davis had his identity stolen.

This example should serve as a lesson to adults and students alike that they should work hard to protect themselves and their personal information online. While the identity theft consequences are not the same for students and adults, since students probably don’t have as much money as most adults to lose, students still should look out for what information they post on Web sites such as Myspace and Facebook, if not for protecting their identity than for keeping themselves safe from online predators.

Facebook especially creates a problem for students. This is due to the wide variety of information that users post there. E-mails and addresses can be found from people’s walls or posted somewhere on that person’s page. Some people even include their telephone numbers on the Web site, but even though the phone number is convenient and can help other students call who might not have it, it’s information that identity thieves and Internet predators would love to have.

Some might argue that social networking sites are protected and, therefore, safe. On the contrary, even though users can set Facebook as well as Myspace to “private” so that only specific friends can see the users information, not everybody does this to protect their safety.

Additionally, information users share, even with just their friends, has the potential to be shared with others with just a simple computer copy and paste command. Consider the facts: according to Facebook, there are more than 90 million active users. Also, Facebook is the fourth most trafficked Web site in the world and the most trafficked social media site in the world.

The odds are, while not every user will see a person’s page, the possibility remains that a lot of other people can see a person, even if it is just that person’s profile picture. With these odds, it’s easy to see how vulnerable users can be.

All of these scenarios can happen and often do. Although by themselves the acts of posting personal information are not dangerous, the consequences very well could be. Students should measure their security before posting anything on Web sites, especially numbers as well as pictures.

Posting a telephone number on Facebook, for example, leaves the door wide open for a large number of people to call or text who that person does not even know. Although that is not always the case, it still provides that possibility for an unknown person to text message or even call an unsuspecting user.

Some numbers can even be linked to a home address just by typing that number in on Google. That is even more dangerous than a number, since any number of people could show up at someone’s front door. Since Facebook is free to everyone, any person in the world might have a chance to see and/or contact a person across the city or even across the world.

Despite these concerns, there are many solutions to the possible dangers of posting personal information on Web sites. The easiest solution for users is just to not post the personal information in the first place. Without any information or pictures that other people could see, it can drastically decrease the chance of some unknown person making contact.

Another solution is to only add people that you know and making the page private so that only friends and people that you know can see that information, including wall posts and pictures. While it’s not a failsafe method, a private setting can help to keep a user safe.

Students should work diligently now to protect their online identity for the future. Practicing safe Internet use should become a habit for later in life. Taking action now will go a long way towards protecting a person from potentially serious consequences.